How To Look Your Best While Still Eating What You Love

Below is a great guest that will get you thinking differently about the way you eat. I’ve been getting a lot of comments recently about you guys having a hard time with your style because you’re a little overweight.

Losing weight is one of the fastest and most dramatic effects you can have on your style.

Read the following carefully, and enjoy!

I’ll cut to the chase here: dieting sucks.

Or at least conventional dieting does…

You know what I’m talking about, right?

Those diets that don’t ever let you eat the foods that you actually enjoy eating, and make each day seem like a constant test of your fortitude.

And, really, sheer willpower will only take you so far. Eventually, you’ll fall of the diet wagon, since nothing that feels so consistently unpleasant will ever be sustainable in the long run.

We’re all only human, after all – and endlessly depriving yourself of food you love quickly starts to feel like you’re depriving yourself of life.

But, at the same time, you want to have a nice body and look good in clothes that fit you properly.

The reality is that it’s much more difficult to look stylish when you’re overweight or lacking the right amount of muscle tone to properly frame your body in clothing.

In contrast, when you are in great shape, clothes tend to fit you as they were designed to fit – instead of bunching up in all the wrong places, looking awkward, or requiring alterations.

So, if you care about style and looking your best, you need to make sure that your diet is in order too.

The bad fit disease is very real. And if you’re overweight, it’s hard to get the proper fit.

Which then begs an obvious question…

Does dieting have to be unpleasant?

If a little voice in your head answers with a resounding ‘yes’, then don’t worry, you’re not alone.

Most people believe that dieting and suffering go together like peas and carrots – as if it were somehow firmly set in stone that building a lean, muscular body and enjoying food aren’t compatible.

Let me tell you right now that it doesn’t have to be like that.

Dieting should not feel like an insurmountable challenge; and if it does feel that way – or did when you tried dieting before – you can rest assured that there absolutely is nothing wrong with you…

You’re just doing dieting wrong.

Yes, you can eat the foods you love, drink alcohol, be social, and enjoy life – while still cutting fat, building muscle, and looking your absolute best.

Let me show you how.

The Myth Of Eating Clean

When you think of dieting, what sort of foods come to mind?

If you’re like most guys, images of so-called ‘clean’ foods probably start swimming in your head.

Chicken breast, broccoli, almonds, quinoa, etc.

Does that get your taste buds tingling in anticipation?

Probably not, right?

Unfortunately, we’ve been conditioned to think that you need to eat these ‘clean’ foods to get lean.

This means consistently choosing these ‘good’ foods over ‘bad’ ones if you want to add muscle and lose fat.

So, you think, oatmeal for breakfast, salad for lunch, and chicken breast with broccoli for dinner.

Wow, exciting huh?

And imagine only eating foods like that day in and day out for months, while you’re trying to lose some weight.

What a boring way to live!

And, really, it’s no wonder that dietary compliance is so low, with so many guys needlessly forcing these unpalatable diets upon themselves.

But fear not, because I am about to tell you something that will make you never see dieting in the same way again:

Eating so-called ‘clean’ foods will make absolutely no difference to how much weight you’ll gain or lose.

Instead, your weight is entirely determined by your body’s energy balance; that is, how many calories you are taking in compared to how many your body is burning.

So you’re saying that junk food is healthy?

Now before I go on, I want to be clear that I’m not advocating that you should eat nothing but junk food in your efforts to lose weight.

I repeat, it is unhealthy to eat nothing but McDonald’s and Cinnabon all day, even if you can lose weight doing it!

You will be lacking vital micronutrients if you do this (vitamins and minerals), in addition to having an absolutely terrible macronutrient balance.

Macronutrients, for those of you that don’t know, are simply proteins, carbohydrates and fats. All of the calories that you consume are composed of a combination of these macronutrients (in addition to alcohol, which isn’t considered a macronutrient).

So, while your scale weight is determined by the number of calories you eat compared to how many calories your body burns for energy, the specific composition of your body – including how much muscle you have – is determined by the quantity and ratios of macronutrients that you eat.

A New Approach To Dieting

This new macronutrient-based approach to dieting has become commonly known as IIFYM.

This stands for ‘If It Fits Your Macros’, and was fittingly popularized by the website iifym.com.

Basically, the crux of this dietary principle is simple: you can eat whatever you want as long as it fits into your appropriate macronutrient allotments each day.

Does this mean you can eat burgers and fries? Yes it does.

How about pizza? Yes, you can eat that too.

What about ice cream? Sure, you can have some every night for dessert.

But here’s the catch…

You can eat these foods, but you can’t constantly pig out on them – otherwise you will get fat.

Also, you have to keep an eye on the balance of carbs, proteins, and fats that you are taking in.

If you consume all fats and carbs – even within the correct caloric limits – your weight itself won’t be negatively impacted, but you will find it very difficult to put on and maintain muscle mass.

But as long as you are following these basic principles, you can literally throw away the notion of ‘clean’ foods, and finally stop forcing yourself to eat things you don’t like.

How To Get Started With IIFYM

If you are interested in following a dietary approach like this – one that doesn’t deprive you of your favorite foods or make you feel guilty every time you eat them – then you have several options.

1) The Do-It-Yourself Approach

If you are the kind of person that is happy to spend some time researching things, then you can definitely put together your own diet plan based on these principles.

To help with this, you can visit the IIFYM website, where they have a calculator that lets you figure out the macronutrients you should be eating, based on your specific goals.

Did you enjoy this article? Have any questions? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

Thanks for the info, I love clothes and anything to do with that… I have been lucky and never really ever had a weight problem , lol If anything I try to gain weight. Fast food won’t make you gain weight either. Any way not me. A good balance of all foods has always been my main stay. fruits , I drink most of mine. Yet I get them in every day one way or another. Veggies I love and beef, pork, Oh my… I have had a belly problem the last few years off and on. What you said about proper fit is key to looking your best. I may need to buy a bigger shirt and have it tailored to give a structured yet not to tight on the belly is always a good look for me. Even wearing a belt and loosening a shirt a bit once tucked gives a trimmer look for me. Any way , Thanks Again for all the good advice, Kevin

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this shit means – eat junk food, some pills after that and be healthy??

I think what he’s trying to convey is that if you want to get/stay lean you don’t have to eat “perfect”. He’s not advocating to eat junk food all day long, because after all you still need vitamins, minerals, etc. However you CAN ease up on any obsessiveness and be just a little more relaxed in your approach.

Jeremy is correct. I am certainly not advocating an approach where you eat junk food all the day. What I am saying, however, is that purely in terms of body composition – that is, your weight, body fat, amount of muscle – it comes down to a combination of caloric intake and macronutrients (carbs, fats, and proteins).

Basically, it doesn’t matter which specific foods you get those calories or macronutrients from – as long as you get them in the right quantities and ratios.

But this brings up an important distinction between overall health and appearance. You can lose weight and build muscle eating foods that don’t have the best nutritional value, but that doesn’t mean that they should make up the bulk of your diet. As I mentioned in the article, eating McDonalds etc all the time is not going to be good for your health overall.

However, I wrote the article because I see a lot of guys confused about the notion of ‘clean’ foods, and there is a misconception that you have to eat these foods exclusively to develop a good body. This is simply not true, and I’ve found that having a more balanced perspective helps guys stick to an effective diet long-term, since you won’t feel like you can never work in the foods you love without setting back your progress.

Hope this clarifies things – and i”ll be here to answer any other questions if you have them!

Tonight is “poker night” with the guys. I’ll be having a few beers, chips, etc.

So what I’ll do is eat extra healthy during the day to make up for it. Lots of carbs tonight, so very few during the day. Very little protein/veggies tonight, so I’ll make sure I eat extra clean today.

Instead of going insane and not having any beer or chips tonight with my buddies, I’ll just make up for it during the day. It’s a simple balancing act, which makes it MUCH easier to follow.